Intent

At Seaside, we understand the vital role mathematical learning plays in preparing children for wider life and future opportunities. We view mathematics as being key to developing children’s analytical thinking, resilience and problem-solving skills. As teachers, we work to ensure that every pupil has the opportunity to experience a meaningful mathematics education, by encouraging them to become inquisitive, resourceful and independent learners who seek challenge. We aim for our pupils to have both procedural and conceptual understanding of mathematics, to allow them to become mathematical thinkers, capable problem solvers and confident reasoners. Our intent for mathematics must ensure that children love the subject rather than loathe it! Whilst reading is at the heart of our knowledge led curriculum, mathematics must be valued in the same way to enable the development of well rounded, highly motivated and knowledgeable individuals.

Implementation

Planning:

At Seaside, we use our own carefully developed long, medium and short-term plans, which follow the National Curriculum objectives. This ensures we provide a progressive and inclusive curriculum. Children are provided with opportunities throughout the year to re-visit, consolidate and build on previous learning. Differentiation is planned for within every lesson throughout the school. Lessons are further differentiated in KS2 through the use of setting, based on attainment. This provides more tailored teaching and learning opportunities with the benefit of smaller class sizes. 

Daily maths lessons are taught in two sections; an arithmetic based starter and a main lesson, which is based around an achievable and clear ‘Can I’ statement. In KS1 and KS2, the arithmetic starters are planned for on short term plans and follow a set structure; one per week based on an area of fractions, three on an area of arithmetic and one based on their half termly maths target.

A daily times table session is also factored into the KS2 school timetable, to ensure regular and consistent teaching of this important skill.

Policies and Resources:

At Seaside, to ensure children develop and progress their calculation skills we use a structured Calculation Policy for the teaching of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Our policy allows children to work through a series of ‘stages’, which are presented as concrete, pictorial and abstract methods, to ensure they understand the ‘why’ behind the maths.

Particularly in Early Years and KS1, we encourage children to initially develop their mathematical understanding of topics such as place value, shape and measure through using concrete resources such as Dienes, multi-link and Numicon. As children progress through the school, they then build on this moving on to pictorial representations and then abstract approaches which involve number alone. Models and Images are key in embedding this understanding and are revisited at the start of every term.

Children are provided with further learning opportunities at home via online learning, using Times Table Rockstars and My Maths. Weekly homework is set via these platforms to build on learning within the classroom.

Impact

The impact of these policies and strategies is regularly assessed and monitored by the Mathematics and Senior Leadership Teams. This is done through pupil voice, planning and book scrutinies, performance management and data analysis, thereby ensuring we provide a varied, comprehensive and progressive curriculum. Our progress and attainment in mathematics by the end of KS2 in 2019, was well above the national average, where it has been for the last 10 years, indicating that the teaching of mathematics at Seaside is of a consistently high standard. This enables children to leave Seaside confident and with a level of numeracy that equips them to meet their full potential in future educational settings.